Here are some of the images the American space agency selected to feature “our fascinating universe”
During the twilight hour on August 8, 2019, the blue hour panorama scanned along the clear western sky and looked down at Mt Whitney, from along the John Muir Trail towards the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The Belt of Venus seems to be bordering the falling grey shadow of Earth. Photo: Matthias Ciprian
On July 19, 2013 Earth was photographed from two other worlds of the solar system — innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant Saturn. (Left) Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of Saturn, as captured by robotic Cassini spacecraft. The same day, people on Earth snapped Saturn. (Right) The Earth-Moon system is seen against the dark background of space as captured by the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft. Photo: Cassini Imaging Team, NASA
These stars of open cluster NGC 290 were captured in 2006 by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 290 lies about 200,000 light-years away from a neighboring galaxy called the Small Cloud of Magellan. It contains hundreds of stars and spans about 65 light years across. Photo: NASA, ESA, Hubble
Galaxy NGC 7714 was distorted after a recent collision with a neighbouring galaxy. This smaller neighbour NGC 7715 (left) charged right through NGC 7714, which is located about 130 million light years away. The interactions between these galaxies may have started about 150 million years ago and may continue for several hundred million years more. Photo: Hubble Space Telescope
This is spiral galaxy M33, also known as Triangulum Galaxy, which lies three million light-years away. This 25 panel telescopic mosaic shows its inner 30,000 light-years or so. The portrait also shows off the galaxy's reddish ionised hydrogen clouds or HII regions. The ultraviolet radiation from the stars ionises the surrounding hydrogen gas and then produces the red glow. Photo: Hubble Space Telescope
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